Sharing the Teachings Without Name and Number

This paper will highlight my personal experience with learning differences during a fifteen-year career as a teacher in an independent college preparatory school. I will also incorporate some current approaches of Urantia-based educational institutions such as UrantiaUniversity.

I will cover how we might facilitate comfort and competence with the “as we pass by" approach through technical, experiential, and leadership training. We will consider various adaptations that need be made when sharing scientific, philosophical, or religious revelation. I will identify some of the hurdles to formally or informally teaching Urantia Book concepts, along with a consideration of several related opportunities and venues for such endeavors.

Finding The Urantia Book is a life changer to the one who believes it and acts as though what it says is true and real.

This holds true whether one is accepting scientific precepts, historical accounts, philosophical principles, or spiritual truths. To bring the concepts of The Urantia Book into one’s consciousness by first reading then remaining open to what one has read as a reality and possibility, is like having opened the door to celestial strangers and letting them into your Earthly home. To the extent that you give them a warm welcome, your home and your neighbors’ homes will never be the same and never be better.

And if you choose to accept the gifts of these strangers as though they are from the heavens and as though these strangers are now your friends, you will find a way for their remarkable gifts to influence others.

The younger one is when this happens, the more likely an exuberant naïveté will come running to assist. (This, of course, includes the young at heart.)

Such was my case. The Urantia Book came to me, an idealistic if somewhat insecure teenager, and proceeded to begin its process of change on me. The initial experience with such a trove of recognized and “obvious” truth is such that the psychology of projection will surely take over and turn one entirely into purveyor, if not a parrot, of that “obvious truth” to as many as one can suppose should be able to, obviously, see it as easily as you did.

I had the merciful good “fortune” of finding the Book during the second semester of twelfth grade. My youth and the youth of friends around me made it easy for me to try sharing the truths and concepts of the revelation with close friends. My personal insecurities and a decidedly unsalesmanlike manner made it unlikely for me to try to share too much with very many outside my circle of friendship if I knew them.

But, with complete strangers, all bets were off. I would look for what someone was interested in and see if any door would open to anything that could be shared from The Urantia Book.

Most sharing was greeted by skepticism that a long-haired teenager might have anything to share that would not ultimately have to be taken with a grain of salt; or perhaps the whole shaker.

What we all find and learn through these experiences of trial and error, is that we must be judicious in what we share with others if we are to even have the chance of a receptive audience. Many failures in what we share hone our skills in disseminating the revelation’s treasures. We realize that sometimes sharing “less is more.” And sometimes “discretion is the better part of valor,” remaining silent initially may allow one to “fight another day;” to find one’s audience more receptive or better able to hear what one has to say at a later time.

Then again, experience teaches that ideas, vehemently rejected at first, may still germinate like forgotten seeds in the hearer’s unconscious and, if left undisturbed, one may hear the idea one first presented, repeated back as though it originated with the hearer themself! This is where it is helpful, if we take seriously The Urantia Book’s statement regarding certain high service, to “serve without recognition.” In certain minds, it is impossible for even good ideas to find lodgment if that person cannot see the idea as original with them. So seed planting ought to be deliberately artful and cognizant of the kind of garden in which it is to be planted.

Still, countless mistakes are made in the acquirement of any art. And the impartation of knowledge and truth to the variably receptive is no hard science. It is an adaptive, fluid, and highly personal, if imprecise, art.

I’d been reading 4½ years when, by the grace of God and the fledgling Urantia community, I found myself with the good fortune of beginning a teaching career at an independent school for learning difference youngsters in Denver, Colorado. I found myself learning to teach with adept and creative teaching professionals. I was a stranger within the gates among giants but friendly giants. Five of us were students of the revelation on a faculty of about fifteen with one hundred and forty learning-difference youngsters aged eight to eighteen.

I was twenty-two.

We had a lower school, middle school, and high school and a nascent college preparatory school under the umbrella of the school. I was assigned to the prep school.

Over fifteen school terms, I had the opportunity to teach a little at all levels but found my home in the prep school teaching biology, chemistry, algebra, geometry, physical science, trigonometry, calculus, world history, and American history in various combinations from year to year. My last two school years, I functioned largely as transition specialist assisting students leaving prep school or high school with what they would encounter as new young-adult life concerns in the domains of work, independent living, self-management, post-secondary education, finance, recreational and leisure, and social and emotional issues.

All in all, it was a wonderful work-life experience in the domain of K-12 education.

During the course of it all, I found myself with numerous opportunities to “share the teachings without name and number” or, as most of us in the movement said in those days, to “bootleg the teachings.”

With the benefit of an independent-school environment, an executive director and two associate directors and one other who were Urantia Book readers, varied curricular domains in which to teach, a reasonable beginning knowledge of The Urantia Book, and a wealth of inexperience leaving me relatively uninhibited in my approach to lesson planning, I made various forays at injecting various Urantia Book teachings into the curriculum as appropriate sidelights.

I would usually preface bringing in a concept by speaking about the topic first as it was conventionally thought of.

For instance, in talking about the periodic table, its arrangement vis-à-vis the filling of the orbitals with electrons and the periodic table reflecting outer electron configuration,

Diagonal Rule

Electron configuration table

It was possible to mention two concepts from The Urantia Book.

One was the sevenfold pattern in the periodic table:

(479.7) 42:9.2 The number seven is basic to the central universe and the spiritual system of inherent transmissions of character, but the number ten, the decimal system, is inherent in energy, matter, and the material creation. Nevertheless the atomic world does display a certain periodic characterization which recurs in groups of seven—a birthmark carried by this material world indicative of its far-distant spiritual origin.

(480.1) 42:9.3 This sevenfold persistence of creative constitution is exhibited in the chemical domains as a recurrence of similar physical and chemical properties in segregated periods of seven when the basic elements are arranged in the order of their atomic weights. When the Urantia chemical elements are thus arranged in a row, any given quality or property tends to recur by sevens. This periodic change by sevens recurs diminishingly and with variations throughout the entire chemical table, being most markedly observable in the earlier or lighter atomic groupings. Starting from any one element, after noting some one property, such a quality will change for six consecutive elements, but on reaching the eighth, it tends to reappear, that is, the eighth chemically active element resembles the first, the ninth the second, and so on. Such a fact of the physical world unmistakably points to the sevenfold constitution of ancestral energy and is indicative of the fundamental reality of the sevenfold diversity of the creations of time and space. Man should also note that there are seven colors in the natural spectrum.

This is pretty clear until you get to Cobalt, atomic number 27. Just ignore the noble gases, because they are not chemically active unless under artificially enormous heat and pressure, and you get this characteristic and obvious (to a chemist) repetition of characteristics. But after that it gets to be not really obvious at all. Just like the author says, it is “diminishingly” apparent. But the point of pattern being apparent can be made.

Secondly, it was possible to speak about the relative instability of all elements over number 100:

(477.6) 42:7.4 The local universes are of decimal construction. There are just one hundred distinguishable atomic materializations of space-energy in a dual universe; that is the maximum possible organization of matter in Nebadon.

While chemistry and physics still presume to name new elements over atomic number 100 with half lives of days and seconds real, it was possible to show that instability of those higher-numbered atoms make them only able to be artificially lab-created with relatively short half-lives. Periodic tables tend to stay limited to 118 elements now whereas, 30 years ago, the presumption was that, perhaps, the elements might be generated indefinitely.

Chart of nuclides for all known isotopes showing the ratios protons to neutrons and their relative stability.

Hideki Yukawa

Then there is the revelation about the “mesotron.” Certainly, this is an example of up-to-the-minute revelation in the middle of a discovery.

Hideki Yukawa predicted the existence and the approximate mass of the mesotron and named it in 1934, 13 years before it was actually discovered by three scientists in collaboration at the University of Bristol. He supposed that it was the mediator of the strong force, which he also predicted. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics 1n 1949 for these contributions.

The name “mesotron” stuck long enough for the revelators to have to leave it in the text of the revelation while the particle was renamed the “meson” due to Werner Heisenberg’s insistence that the “tr” was not part of Greek etymology. Still, an article by Charles W. Sheppard in Scientific American, in November, 1939, was entitled, “Hunting the Mesotron,” indicating the term was still in use at least five years later. Mu mesons, muons, then pi mesons, pions, were alternatively thought to carry the strong force or strong interaction. Here my knowledge of physics will stand down and defer to others more knowledgeable. Still, it is evident from what was revealed that the actual function of the “mesotron” might not be easily discoverable in any short time frame, if at all.

(479.1) 42:8.3 The charged protons and the uncharged neutrons of the nucleus of the atom are held together by the reciprocating function of the mesotron, a particle of matter 180 times as heavy as the electron. Without this arrangement the electric charge carried by the protons would be disruptive of the atomic nucleus.

So far, this appeared to be in alignment with notions regarding the strong (force) interaction.

(479.2) 42:8.4 As atoms are constituted, neither electric nor gravitational forces could hold the nucleus together. The integrity of the nucleus is maintained by the reciprocal cohering function of the mesotron, which is able to hold charged and uncharged particles together because of superior force-mass power and by the further function of causing protons and neutrons constantly to change places. The mesotron causes the electric charge of the nuclear particles to be incessantly tossed back and forth between protons and neutrons. At one infinitesimal part of a second a given nuclear particle is a charged proton and the next an uncharged neutron. And these alternations of energy status are so unbelievably rapid that the electric charge is deprived of all opportunity to function as a disruptive influence. Thus does the mesotron function as an “energy-carrier” particle which mightily contributes to the nuclear stability of the atom.

This is very different from mediating the strong force. While it may still have some part in that, the virtually undiscoverable aspect of this would have to be the tossing back and forth of charge at a rate that parses a second infinitesimally.

(479.3) 42:8.5 The presence and function of the mesotron also explains another atomic riddle. When atoms perform radioactively, they emit far more energy than would be expected. This excess of radiation is derived from the breaking up of the mesotron “energy carrier,” which thereby becomes a mere electron. The mesotronic disintegration is also accompanied by the emission of certain small uncharged particles.

The mesotron “energy carrier,” being 180 times the mass of an electron, is nothing short of amazing that it disintegrates to an electron coupled with the emission of “certain small uncharged particles.”

(479.4) 42:8.6 The mesotron explains certain cohesive properties of the atomic nucleus, but it does not account for the cohesion of proton to proton nor for the adhesion of neutron to neutron. The paradoxical and powerful force of atomic cohesive integrity is a form of energy as yet undiscovered on Urantia.

This was likely referring to the strong force/strong interaction that was theorized by Yukawa in the 30s but not experimentally corroborated until the 1970s. But it could refer to a different form of energy since the Mighty Messenger differentiates this force the “superior force-mass power” of the mesotron that can “hold charged and uncharged particles together” vs. the “cohesion of proton to proton” and the “adhesion of neutron to neutron.” This was a “form of energy undiscovered on Urantia” in 1934-35. Is it still?

(479.5) 42:8.7 These mesotrons are found abundantly in the space rays which so incessantly impinge upon your planet.

It is known that muons and pions (mesotrons) are secondary cosmic ray accompaniments of the “air shower” following a primary cosmic ray hits the atmosphere. Interesting to see what may still be discovered around these remarkable particles still hardly understood.

This complexity hardly deterred a young teacher in his twenties. The concepts of protons, neutrons, nuclides and isotopes were presented to the students with basic exercises in identifying and labeling the isotope given the number protons and neutrons or deducing the number of neutrons from the isotope and number of protons.

You get the idea.

It was possible to introduce the mesotron as a theoretical topic. Describe its salient characteristics such as mass relative to the electrons, protons, and neutrons and to describe what it might do per The Urantia Book’s revelation. I ended by stating that it was a mystery.

You might well ask: how did that benefit your students?

And I would have to answer, “I honestly don’t know.”

But I would then need to ask you: how have you benefited from that knowledge being revealed in Paper 42?

Do you suppose the Mighty Messenger was just teaching us a lesson in prioritizing what to pay attention to and what to ignore in our day and age?

Or are you benefited in some way by knowing what The Urantia Book has to say on matter?

How?

If nothing else, is it not remarkable that these remarkable atoms are so carefully put together in order to function as well as they do?

Yes, some of them do fly apart at times.

The fact that the Architects of the Master Universe, beings that are “uncreated noncreators” designed the matter and energy we encounter and with which we work, gives one pause to reflect what they had to do to come up with matter that could be used in this age and after the Supreme being gains control of it all through the endless ages of eternity.

But, in the main, the matter we depend on, day in and day out, functions so well that, well…

…we do what we always do when any device, appliance, mechanism, facility, or utility works well.

We don’t give it a second thought.

When we need give anything a second thought or need vigilance regarding any reality in our lives, isn’t it, in general, a sign that something is not working?

Conversely, and in the realm beyond “hard” science, we cannot tell very easily just how good a leader is when the organization over which they preside is functioning well. Good leaders hardly have an opportunity to show what they can do, while the incompetencies of leaders can be well masked by a corporate or government entity that is already performing well.

It is not so with a poorly functioning entity. A good leader will shine by showing just what they can do by bringing what is needed or lacking in the functioning of that company or society. Incompetency or malfeasance cannot hide where good leadership is present turning an organization around.

Certainly, this is the kind of leader we have in Michael. Did he not show us what true leadership looked like and in a circumstance where good leadership was sorely needed?

Let’s use that minor digression as a segué to history and social studies and the possibilities with civics and Government on A Neighboring Planet.

Teaching American history and world history allowed for some teaching regarding the U.S. Constitution and government. During the course, the topic of the House and the Senate and their composition were treated. 435 seats in the House represented about 227 million people (not eligible voters) at the time, which apportioned the seats at about 521,000 people per congressional district.

Asking the question in a Colorado classroom in the 80s of how many people grew up in Colorado drew a very mixed response. Most people were from somewhere else. We discussed how the trend of people moving from where they were born or grown up affect how representative a congressional district is of the people there. That drew mixed responses in consideration that people who have not settled for long in a place may not have the same needs nor attachments as people long settled there.

US House of Represesntatives by Xyzzyva c 2015

After teaching the rudiments and the importance of the checks and balances in the threefold separation of powers, a peculiar idea was offered for consideration.

Since we have a Senate with two senators already representing the interests of each of the 50 states, what if national blocs of voters elected congresspersons from particular vocations or vocational groups?

For instance: pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters would vote as one bloc nationwide with one seat in congress;

shipping, receiving, and traffic clerks, one seat;

secondary school teachers, two seats;

lawyers, two seats.

You get the idea.

This concept is well articulated in Paper 72:

809.5-8) 72:2.4-7 The legislative division embraces three houses:

1. The upper house is elected by industrial, professional, agricultural, and other groups of workers, balloting in accordance with economic function.

2. The lower house is elected by certain organizations of society embracing the social, political, and philosophic groups not included in industry or the professions. All citizens in good standing participate in the election of both classes of representatives, but they are differently grouped, depending on whether the election pertains to the upper or lower house.

3. The third house—the elder statesmen—embraces the veterans of civic service and includes many distinguished persons nominated by the chief executive, by the regional (subfederal) executives, by the chief of the supreme tribunal, and by the presiding officers of either of the other legislative houses. This group is limited to one hundred, and its members are elected by the majority action of the elder statesmen themselves. Membership is for life, and when vacancies occur, the person receiving the largest ballot among the list of nominees is thereby duly elected. The scope of this body is purely advisory, but it is a mighty regulator of public opinion and exerts a powerful influence upon all branches of the government.

The previous idea presented pertains to point 1.

Could this be a more representative law-making body? Why or why not?

Clearly, there would be many obstacles to moving immediately toward implementing such a scheme, considerating just how gerrymandered our territorial congressional districts currently are.

The Urantia Book injects a creative stimulus to considering alternatives that, should such ideas enter the cultural stream, may move our democracy a little closer to the ideals of more representative government.

Other professions, skilled trades, and labor occupations would vote as blocs with others having similar interests.

The scales may have tipped toward economic affiliation mattering more to most people than place of domicile. While many people may still care more for their chosen place to live, their work is likely to affect what matters to them more; especially the more one descends the scale of the economic ladder.

The average American will move 11.3-11.7 times in their life. That number increases for those making less than median income. The wealthier the individual or family, the more likely they are to stay in place. But for most people, territorial franchise may be less reflective of “who they are.” Curiously, that is hardly studied as a potential factor in declining voter turnout.

The most frequently listed occupational categories by members of the just prior 114th Congress were:

Public Service or Politics: 271 Representatives; 60 Senators;

Business: 231 Representatives; 42 Senators;

Law: 151 Representatives; 51 Senators;

Education: 80 Representatives; 25 Senators

While the make up of the congress is slowly diversifying (see Appendix) lawyers and businesspeople still dominate the legislative process and grant their constituencies a de facto economic superfranchise.

This is just one way a few paragraphs can stimulate discussion on the state of our democratic institutions, the concept of representative government, and introduction of some new ways to think about them.

Clearly, whole curricula could be developed around the preceding papers, 70, 71, 72, and 81, and their application to historical, sociological, and civics discussions in the classroom. These ideas are not so advanced as to not have immediate application were the ideas sufficiently familiar.

To take another example discussion from both in and out of the classroom, point 2 above regarding the “lower house” illustrates how the many varying “social, political, and philosophic groups not included in industry or the professions” are represented separately by the government of the continental nation on the neighboring world.

Does it have application to the situation in the United States and other countries today?

In the U.S., we have seen the growth of lobbying to where it is a multibillion-dollar industry. It is a common expectation of the citizenry that those with “means” will utilize those means to influence those in elected office to benefit their political, social, or economic cause. The news of the immediately preceding election cycle was focused on how much influence Wall Street and “billionaires” have on politics not to mention direct lobbying by foreign governments.

Is there something to be learned from the neighboring planet? Have the citizens of the continental nation evolved through this?

Top U.S. lobbying sectors 1998–2010

Client

Amount Spent

%

1

Finance, Insurance & Real Estate

$4,274,060,331

15%

2

Health

$4,222,427,808

15%

3

Misc. Business

$4,149,842,571

14%

4

Communications/Electronics

$3,497,881,399

12%

5

Energy & Natural Resources

$3,104,104,518

11%

6

Transportation

$2,245,118,222

8%

7

Other

$2,207,772,363

7%

8

Ideological/Single-Issue

$1,477,294,241

5%

9

Agribusiness

$1,280,824,983

4%

10

Defense

$1,216,469,173

4%

11

Construction

$480,363,108

2%

12

Labor

$427,355,408

1%

13

Lawyers & Lobbyists themselves

$336,170,306

1%

Total

$28,919,684,431

99%

Note: Amounts do not include

campaign contributions.

It may well be that they have. It may be that the lower house is an evolution of the renegade, frontier-justice, might-makes-right modality of big-money lobbying efforts to gain “due” influence. But, necessarily, those without such monetary and organizational resources as the big lobbyists and the constituencies they represent find themselves underrepresented or not at all.

Does it seem that the continental nation realized that any legitimate socio-philosophical or political constituency ought to have a voice.

“If you can’t beat them, join them” approximates this. Bringing the controversy “in-house” so that the entire electorate can elect its best members to represent each contending unified constituency might better state the case. They wisely saw that, if they didn’t give each of these various representative “lobbies” in society a voice, it was destabilizing and the best interests of the country would not be able to rise to the surface. Whether they saw the same dominance of money as a phase of their politics or not, we certainly might learn from their example as a possible solution. Our allowance of “might making right” through allowing the wealthiest to have a voice in society may be a natural and expected evolution within our society but relatively disallows the voices of those who do not have those monetary megaphones. It ought to be obvious that the greater the unrepresentative nature of a society’s institutions and government, the more untenable that society becomes as a unified society over time.

But it is not obvious and the revelators are expanding our frame such that we might see what is needful to notice with a little greater ease.

One last thing on applying the teachings:

The General Council of The Urantia Book Fellowship just approved the formation of an Advisory Council modeled after a hybrid of “the house of elder statesmen” and the “supercabinet” of ex-presidents in paper 72 after considerable deliberation. It will be interesting to see how that functions as an aid to the General Council and the Executive Committee of the Fellowship. It is a thoughtful experiment in application of concepts from The Urantia Book.

I have not yet touched the spiritual realm. While it is outside the scope of most formal teaching, it is germane to being a good teacher and counselor. Without seeing our students as fellows “just a little behind us,” or citizens as family members and potential friends, we can hardly be very effective as purveyors of the revelation. No matter how “available” the revelation is to another through our diligent study and preparation, it is of little use if we are unable to be approachable or amicable with another. One can hardly do this as an equal without our Father being close at hand in our minds.

Regular prayer and worship are essential if we’re to express as much of our potential as we can. Equally, we must seek out service opportunities through which we might expend some of the energy acquired in our inner life practice and make us hungry for more.

And, whether with students or fellows we happen upon in life, opportunities may arise at any time for sharing the gospel message of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man; more so, if we can adapt it and translate it adequately into words those listening to us might be able to hear.

And all that comes through much trial and not a little error.

A high school classroom afforded some ability to treat these topics rudimentarily in the course of a regular curriculum occasionally.

But there are a growing number of avenues available to the student of The Urantia Book for first, seeding such topics and then even discussing or developing them. Social media is not a panacea and may not lead to solutions immediately but it is, at the very least, a tool for the dissemination of ideas.

So, what else favors the effective promulgation of the truths of The Urantia Book?

In the first place, we must learn what the Book is trying to teach us. We must pay adequate attention to getting as much of the Book’s teachings “under our belt” as we can.

We ought, as we are doing this, to look for and see where the teachings might apply. What in the revelation could apply to the current situation I am a part of or event I am witnessing? Without reflecting on this, we can at best be parrots of the teachings with little ability to apply them to the current state of our communities, our nation, and our world.

In the service of that objective, it helps to study in groups; in community. We are disabused of much error that can occur when we study in isolation. Additional perspectives on concepts help us to know how unusual or difficult it might be to get a particular idea across. Familiarity with other ways of thinking about the teachings is essential.

It helps to further hone one’s communication skills through public speaking education such as Toastmasters, Dale Carnegie, or the National Speakers Association; and to find opportunities for sharing, developing, or implementing these ideas.

Webcasting, podcasting, YouTube educational videos, public introductions to The Urantia Book, book fairs, community fairs, establishing courses of instruction such as in the Urantia Book Internet School (UBIS), UrantiaUniversity Institute (UUI), artistic collaborations, creation of study guides and materials, and eventual establishment of viable educational institutions in the evolutionary culture stream of our planet will be how the revelation will ultimately do its work on and for this world.

587.1) 51:6.3 Think what it would mean on your world if somewhere in the Levant there were a world center of civilization, a great planetary university of culture, which had functioned uninterruptedly for 37,000 years. And again, pause to consider how the moral authority of even such an ancient center would be reinforced were there situated not far-distant still another and older headquarters of celestial ministry whose traditions would exert a cumulative force of 500,000 years of integrated evolutionary influence. It is custom which eventually spreads the ideals of Eden to a whole world.

On that note, I’ll end with what I used to teach my math students; most of who could not but look upon it as a foreign language and for foreigners.

I would let them know that getting to know algebra, geometry, or chemistry or any new body of knowledge was less a process of having to remember it or learn it perfectly right away. A good amount of what we see ourselves, as having to learn seems strange—unfamiliar. That strangeness—inability initially to see that thing in the context of the life we have live up to that point, so far—can initially provoke fear and reticence to invite the “stranger” in. But it dissipates as we grow accustomed to some knew thing or concept. We make it familiar—part of the family of thoughts, concepts, and ideas that inhabit our mind and our life already. Just exposing ourselves to concepts, once unfamiliar, allows them to, almost unconsciously, lose their strangeness. A good teacher, by showing relevance to what is known, creating interest in what is there, and showing what can be of use to someone is a catalyst for familiarity.

Antoine de Saint Exupéry, author of The Little Prince, knew something of creating familiarity. He called it “taming.”

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . ."

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . ."

The next day the little prince came back.

What part of The Urantia Book can be “tamed” by you so that it might enjoy friendship with another?

Appendix

Prior occupations and previously held public offices of Members of the House andSenate at the beginning of the 114th Congress, as listed in their CQ Roll Call Member Profiles

53 Senators with previous House service;

100 Members who have worked in education, including teachers, professors, instructors, school fundraisers, counselors, administrators, or coaches (85 in the House, 15 in the Senate);

3 physicians in the Senate, 15 physicians in the House, plus 3 dentists and 3 veterinarians;

three psychologists (all in the House), an optometrist (in the Senate), a pharmacist (in the House), and four nurses (all in the House);

seven ordained ministers, all in the House;

41 former mayors (33 in the House, 8 in the Senate);

10 former state governors (9 in the Senate, 1 in the House) and 8 lieutenant governors (4 in the Senate, 4 in the House, including 1 Delegate);

15 former judges (all but 1 in the House) and 43 prosecutors (11 in the Senate, 32 in the House) who have served in city, county, state, federal, or military capacities;

one former Cabinet Secretary (in the Senate), and three ambassadors (one in the Senate, two in the House);

267 state or territorial legislators (44 in the Senate, 223 in the House);

at least 102 congressional staffers (21 in the Senate, 81 in the House), as well as

7 congressional pages (3 in the House and 4 in the Senate);

two sheriffs and one deputy sheriff (all in the House), two police officers in the House and one in the Senate, one firefighter in the House, and one CIA agent in the House;

four Peace Corps volunteers, all in the House;

one physicist, one microbiologist, one chemist, and eight engineers (all in the House, with the exception of one Senator who is an engineer);

22 public relations or communications professionals (2 in the Senate, 20 in the House), and 10 accountants (2 in the Senate and 8 in the House);

five software company executives in the House and two in the Senate;

14 management consultants (4 in the Senate, 10 in the House), 6 car dealership owners (all in the House), and 2 venture capitalists (1 in each chamber);

18 bankers or bank executives (4 in the Senate, 14 in the House), 36 veterans of the real estate industry (5 in the Senate, 31 in the House), and 16 Members who have worked in the construction industry (2 in the Senate, 14 in the House);

two social workers in the Senate and six in the House and four union representatives (all in the House);

six radio talk show hosts (one Senate, five House); eight radio or television broadcasters, managers, or owners (two Senate, six House); nine reporters or journalists (two Senate, seven House); and a public television producer in the House;

19 insurance agents or executives (4 Senate, 15 House) and 3 stockbrokers (2 in the Senate, 1 in the House);

one screenwriter and comedian and one documentary filmmaker (both in the Senate), and an artist in the House;

29 farmers, ranchers, or cattle farm owners (4 in the Senate, 25 in the House)

two almond orchard owners in the House, as well as two vintners; and · 10 current members of the military reserves (8 House, 2 Senate) and 7 current members of the National Guard (6 House, 1 Senate).